Manager 1991 - 1993

Personal information
Full name Liam Brady
Date of birth February 13, 1956
Place of birth Dublin, Ireland
Nickname Chippy

Club information
Current club
Arsenal (as Head of Youth Development)
He oversaw the club's FA Youth Cup wins in 2000 and 2001

Position as player: Midfielder

Clubs (as player)
1973-80 Arsenal
1980-82 Juventus
1982-84 Sampdoria
1984-86 Internazionale
1986-87 Ascoli
1987-90 West Ham United

National team
1974-89 Republic of Ireland 72 (9)

Teams managed
1991-93 Celtic
1993-95 Brighton & Hove Albion

Management Career at Celtic

Before any of you read any of the following, a warning, some of it can be painful reading covering a disastrous period in the club's history, although not in all the fault of Liam Brady, and the good points have to be highlighted as amongst the gloom there were some great moments and entertainment too (somewhere!).

The Start
Liam Brady was given the job straight after an interview process, after Terry Cassidy (Celtic Chief Executive!) decided to not headhunt for a new manager but rather to advertise and invite potential managers for interviews. This poor idea ended up lead ing to Liam Brady being picked as a manager.

Liam Brady, appointed on 19 June 1991, was the first Celtic manager who had not previously played for the club, and also the first since Willie Maley in the 1890s to have had no prior experience of football management

On paper it was a gamble, Liam Brady had no managerial or coaching pedigree or experience, and he was coming to Scotland with not having played in the Premier Division at anytime. On the other hand, his appointment was a welcome change, having completed a successful playing career in England with Arsenal (where he is still hailed as a legend) and then in Italy. He broke the mould also for players from the UK and Ireland by being that rarity of a player from these isles to have been able to actually settle down successfully in Italy and make a go of it, unlike say Denis Law or Ian Rush. His undoubted talent as a skilful player definitely marked him out as playing “the Glasgow Celtic Way” augured well, whilst his Irish background was obviously a bonus too!

Management
Things didn't start off well on the pitch, and we didn't the league and he seemed to be naive about the Celtic/Rangers derby stating at first that it was no different to any other such as the Arsenal/Spurs derbies he had played in. It only took his first Glasgow Derby game to show him that this wasn't the case, and it was a real baptism of fire for the Irishman.

Signings
Once he started to spend money, things actually worsened surprisingly. A number of his major player purchases proved to be flops, most infamously the purchase of Tony Cascarino, Frank McAvennie and Gary Gillespie. He bought Tony Cascarino as he thought that he would be a great purchase, having previously been his agent, whilst having played with the mercurial Stuart Slater he thought that he could bring the best out of them. Tony Cascarino was a disaster and laughable, and the relationship between them deteriorated in his time at the club which saw the player happy to escape at the first opportunity to Chelsea whilst we got Tommy Boyd in exchange (best piece of business Brady did).As for Gary Gillespie, the less said the better, just that Liverpool manager (Graham Souness) was said to be laughing at how much he got out of us for him. He was over the hill and made countless errors on the pitch which cost us countless points, rest of the time he was continuously injured.

The most embarrassing was buying back Frank McAvennie. By this time McAvennie was about to sign for Partick Thistle (he even waved the scarf above his head for a photo shoot) before Brady for some reason nipped in to buy him. McAvennie was a shadow of his old self, at this point having just gone through the height of his "coke and burrdz" phase of his life at West Ham. He was pish, simple as that.

Other buys were poor or basically not good enough. Buys like Andy Payon and Rudi Vata weren't bad but they were hardly great players although they did the best they could in the circumstances, and in fairness Andy P. Stuart Slater on the other hand was a great player but he never delivered enough on the pitch. He lacked confidence and direction, and Liam Brady has to take the criticism for that.

Positives or bad luck?
Not being too negative, it has to be said that as a manager he did make Celtic play some great football. With players like McStay and Collins in the team it was not too difficult but he imposed on the team to play a passing game, likely matching his own interpretation of how to play the game as when he played. No matter how poor we did in some games, we were still entertaining to watch (far better than the turgid rubbish the more successful Rangers teams were getting away with).

Another important point is that it should be said that actually Brady was not a large net buyer (taking in Transfer fees). A round-up on "ins and outs" showed that actually he was given overall a measly sum, and he actually did well in getting rid of players. Ok, this doesn't take in the upfront transfer fees or wages, but its still something to note.

The End
It has to said thought, that most of his time at Celtic was overshadowed by rumblings over the direction in which the club was being taken by its senior management (it was the days of "Sack the Board").

The whole situation was a vicious circle, with off field affecting on-field and vice versa. Lack of success and an inability to get into any finals (losing ignomoniously to Motherwell in a semi-final) long saw the writing on the wall for Brady. Sad trivia fact was that he was the first Celtic manager to manage a Celtic team to lose both legs of a European tie (v Borussia Dortmund), however by that time we were far from our old European superpower days and we all knew it so no great surprise.

He tendered his resignation following a league defeat at Perth on 6 October 1993, which not surprisingly Kevin Kelly, Chariman at the time, took without any attempt to convince him to stay. He was the first Celtic manager ever to step down entirely of his own volition, however it is fair to say that he should have left earlier for his own sake at least.

Future
A further foray into management at Brighton was also unsuccessful. Since then, he rejoined Arsenal in July 1996 as Head of Youth Development and Academy Director, and has remained there and has admitted in interviews that he is not interested anymore at all in being a club manager ever again. Also, since leaving as Celtic manager he has only once been back to Parkhead, such was the hurt from his experience due to the press and the board, but regardless of it all he definitely represented dignity personified through his time, and we wish him all the best for the future.

Pictures

• Liam Brady Pictures

Quotes
'I was told when I joined about Celtic's ''paranoia''. Now I know it is true. We are hard done by. Religously and politically, there are people agaisnt us.'
Liam Brady, Celtic Manager, October 1992

"He has done the honourable thing in resigning."
Celtic chairman Kevin Kelly on Liam Brady's resignation 1993 (shame the Celtic board didn't follow him at the time also).